What exactly happened is thus far a mystery, but somehow a large wheel found its way into a woman’s pond on Wellington Road 29 southwest of Fergus.
Homeowner Terry Trahan said the object fell from an airplane on June 29. She wasn’t home at the time, but she said her adult granddaughter, Jerica Hamilton, heard the loud splash.
“I was just getting ready for work … and I heard a big splash so I ran into my bedroom to look out my window and I just saw this big black thing in the water and lots of waves like ripples in the water,” said Hamilton.
She had heard an aircraft flying overhead and discovered the wheel in the pond.
“What else would fall out of the sky?” she asked.
“I called my grandma … and she was the one that said, ‘well, how is the plane going to land and what happens if that fell on the house, and what happens if there is an airplane in distress somewhere’ … I didn’t think of any of that.”
Trahan and Hamilton called the police, who are not sure how the wheel ended up in the pond.
“Police attended and contacted Guelph Airport and Canada’s Civil Air Navigation Services (NAV CAN) but could not identify any planes to have reported losing a tire or anything that might be related,” stated Cst. Josh Cunningham of the Wellington County OPP.
Trahan said she’s glad the wheel ended up in the pond, rather than on the house or the road.
“If it had been in the road, it would have killed somebody driving; if it had hit the roof, it would have gone straight down, there would have been a lot of damage,” she said.
Trahan added the wheel could not be from a car, as it “looks like a landing gear tire” and “a car tire doesn’t come out of the sky.”
Plus, her pond is set far back from the road.
“What I’m more worried about is a plane flying somewhere and landing without one wheel,” she said.
The OPP continues to look into the matter but “cannot confirm where the tire came from,” said Cunningham.
Hamilton said she sent a photo of the wheel to investigators of a plane crash the same day in Flamborough.
Hamilton Police received a “mayday” from a Cessna 206, which made an emergency landing on June 29 in a farmer’s field. The plane was flying a group of skydivers who jumped prior to its decent. There were no injuries and the Transportation Safety Board was notified.
It is unclear if the two incidents are related.
